The Cannabis industry is booming, especially in North America with Canada legalizing recreational use. With the boom comes the inevitable increase in competition among retailers for things like growing equipment and nutrients, seed vendors, Cannabis Cafes, accessories, and even beer.
For this article I will focus on “Province Brands”, the company offering the world;s first true Cannabis brewed beer.
The Use Case
Imagine with every case of Province Brands Cannabis beer that you buy, you acquire a small share in the company, you are now part of the family. The more you buy the more you own. If each case came with a Raptoreum token attached to it that you could then verify, locking in your share, how cool would that be? In addition that token could tell the story of your case of beer, where the Cannabis came from, when it was harvested, what type it is, when it was brewed, who inspected it, I could go on and on.
So now not only do you now have a more personal connection with the company and value added, you essentially have a personalized case of Cannabis beer every time you buy, that tells you its story.
Making It Simple And How It Could Work For The Consumer
In order to claim your share you would need a Raptoreum wallet. You would then send a small amount of Raptoreum to the address listed on the beer. In return you;d receive a uniquely named immutable token, non-fungible, and stored on the Blockchain (public ledger). This token identifies you as a shareholder of X amount and also has attached IPFS files that tell the story of your case of beer. This can be viewed by entering the token’s name in any Raptoreum explorer or possibly the Province Brands site.
How It Works Under The Hood And Benefits For Province Brands
I have no idea how Province Brands handle traceability information for tracking from raw material to finished product, so I am just putting a possible scenario out there, it could be easily modified.
Assuming that each batch of finished product has a # which can be tracked from raw resource to finished product. There would need to be a mechanism in place to do the following:
IPFS Data: Create files and add them to IPFS, these files are “the story” for each item.
IPFS can store and serve static files such as an html page, so the system could even parse the batch information to create a simple html page, and add it to the IPFS (Interplanetary File System). Store the hash for token creation time.
Tokens: Assuming the company register “PROVINCE_BRANDS” as the main asset each batch will have X amount of uniquely named sub-assets (tokens)created. On creation of the IPFS hash from above should be attached to each token. For example PROVINCE_BRANDS/CA2341 in the amount of 25000. You will now have 25000 uniquely named tokens that can be tracked, sent, and have this batches “story” attached with IPFS.
Consumer Claims Token: A smart contract is created that when it sees X RTM sent to X address it issues one token “PROVINCE_BRANDS/CA2341”. Receiving address is included on the beer itself or the packaging and user sends to that address to trigger the contract and receive token.
Benefits For Province Brands
- Increased interaction with consumers which in turn generates loyalty and awareness.
- Ability to broadcast messages to token holders, you now have a direct line of communication and notification to every one of your consumers and shareholders. The importance of this cannot be overstated.
- A rewards or dividends system that allows you to issue payment (in RTM) to any of your token holders at any time no matter where they might be.
- Raptoreum allows for voting by token holders. You can distribute vote tokens to token holders or specific addresses. Want feedback on something? No better way then getting it directly from your consumers and shareholders in a fast, efficient, and cost effective manner.
- Raptoreum is easy to use, especially in the case of tokens. Sending and receiving a token is the same as sending or receiving the Cryptocurrency itself. This will lead to wider adoption and an increased use of tokens by consumers.
- Raptoreums ease of use for tokens, unique naming, and inability to be accidentally be destroyed or lost, dividends, messaging, and voting make it a much better choice than the ERC20 protocol on Ethereum. The addition of smart contracts allow for use cases like this where automation and the trustless transfer of tokens is required in addition to assets.
Closing
The benefits of this use case are pretty clear, and have advantages over the “traditional” way of doing things. There are also a few downsides such as adoption by consumers. But the more of these use cases we see implemented and used the greater adoption will be. Blockchain technology is here to stay and increasingly being used by major companies and corporations. It is only a matter of time before widespread adoption occurs, why not be at the forefront of that movement and benefit from it both at source and consumer levels.
